Czechland Girl

1. Apologizing for doing stupid things isn’t how a person redeems themselves. That’s just apologizing. Redemption is through their actions, which rdj has done in abundance. He contributes to the community. He does charity work. He helps his friends and costars. He’s a good person.

2. Every time you come at us claiming he’s a shitty person with the same argument about his role in Tropic Thunder as “proof” that he’s racist makes you seem ignorant as hell.

3. Speaking of Tropic Thunder, RDJ was aware of how the role came off. Again, the film is satire, about actors that take roles they shouldn’t and the effects of Hollywood. He said, “I know from, occasionally, my own experience, but much more often by observation that there is nothing more disgusting and entertaining than watching an actor who is taking himself very seriously. I thought to couch that in someone putting himself under the impression that he could represent the black experience is so wrong and so creepy. I’m not qualified to discuss this stuff, but I know that as far as my integrity as a man and an artist, I knew that past a certain point it was far more entertaining than controversial.” (source)

4. Maybe watch the film and understand its nuances before criticizing it and its actors.

5. He is a human and he makes mistakes like every other person in the world. Just because he’s famous it doesn’t mean he’s not allowed to slip up every now and then. And he does address his problems. Just because you’re too lazy or seething in self righteous anger it doesn’t mean he’s not working to actively correct his mistakes.

6. What is his “true self”? How do you know who his true self is? Do you know him personally? Have you had a conversation with him in person? Just because you have access to the internet and have seen a few conveniently edited videos of him saying certain things out of context it doesn’t mean you know who he truly is with his friends and family — Friends that include POC and women who all loudly share how much they love him. Friends who know him personally. Friends who know his “true self”, as you so lovingly put it.

7. Why are you so obsessed with this blog, one that belongs to a Tony stan, enough to come in here with your unsolicited and easily refutable arguments, if you’re so clearly annoyed by us? Find something else to do with your time. Go clean out your closet. Look for something in there that will hopefully spark joy instead of stewing in your baseless hatred.

I’m writing this from work so bear with me. I’ve seen a lot of people wanting to do something after what happened with Endgame. I understand this need and I share it. But I figured—since the writers are so tone deaf, anything angry we say will probably fly right over their heads.

So why not focus on RDJ instead?

I was thinking. Everyone is talking about the possibility of him being nominated for an Oscar. Why not try and help with that? There are always beautiful FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION ads in the Hollywood Reporter around Oscar time, and it would speak volumes to see one from the fans. We could raise money, design it with quotes from us, commission an artist to do the main image, and put our names on the bottom. He’d see it, everyone would see it.

Now, problem with this is that it could be insanely expensive. Especially during Oscar time. @whimsicalethnographies and I are going to reach out to the Hollywood Reporter, Variety, Rolling Stone and MAYBE the New Yorker. But if Oscar season is too expensive, our backup plan: a thank you image instead. Same deal as before, maybe outlined a little differently, and sent to them outside of Oscar season. We’d be looking at half page ads and full page ads.

Robert Downey Jr. Fandom Project

He stood before us 11 years ago and said he clearly wasn’t the superhero type because of his laundry list of character defects. And then told us he was Iron Man, anyway. For more than a decade, he made us laugh, cry, snark and taught us that if we aren’t on our side, then why should anyone else be? He spent a lifetime bringing one of Marvel’s second-tier superheroes out of the periphery to life — the hero who shaped an entire generation, and helped others find hope, meaning and purpose one way or another. His contributions to Marvel, superhero films and Hollywood are both undeniable and unparalleled.

As we celebrate the growing mainstream recognition for his craft, for everything he has put into creating Tony Stark, our Tony Stark, we thought this would be on opportune moment to show Robert Downey Jr. how much we love and appreciate him, even as his Marvel journey draws to a close.

We are writing an open letter to him and working to commission a small present — we haven’t figured out the details for this, but will provide updates as we go along — as a token of our affection and gratitude. But we would love for the fandom at large to participate.

So, we have this form where you can leave a short message for him, all of which would be published on this page, alongside our open letter. The plan is to send the link to Jimmy and tag RDJ on social media once we’ve compiled everything together, so he can visit the page and read through all his fans’ messages in one place.

To participate, simply fill out the form by Saturday, June 15, and we will format all the responses and publish them to the Medium page. If you have any questions, feel free to message any of the following blogs and we’ll be happy to answer you: @kayytx @rescueironman @jess-b-thot @starkravinghazelnuts @downeylove @downeyverse

Let’s work together to show RDJ how much we appreciate and love him 3000.

I’m willing to go out on a limb here and guess that most stories of kindness do not begin with drug addicted celebrity bad boys.

    Mine does.

    His name is Robert Downey Jr.

    You’ve probably heard of him. You may or may not be a fan, but I am, and I was in the early 90’s when this story takes place.

    It was at a garden party for the ACLU of Southern California. My stepmother was the executive director, which is why I was in attendance without having to pay the $150 fee. It’s not that I don’t support the ACLU, it’s that I was barely twenty and had no money to speak of.

    I was escorting my grandmother. There isn’t enough room in this essay to explain to you everything she was, I would need volumes, so for the sake of brevity I will tell you that she was beautiful even in her eighties, vain as the day is long, and whip smart, though her particular sort of intelligence did not encompass recognizing young celebrities.

    I pointed out Robert Downey Jr. to her when he arrived, in a gorgeous cream-colored linen suit, with Sarah Jessica Parker on his arm. My grandmother shrugged, far more interested in piling her paper plate with various unidentifiable cheeses cut into cubes. He wasn’t Carey Grant or Gregory Peck. What did she care?

    The afternoon’s main honoree was Ron Kovic, whose story of his time in the Vietnam War that had left him confined to a wheelchair had recently been immortalized in the Oliver Stone film Born on the Fourth of July.

    I mention the wheelchair because it played an unwitting role in what happened next.

    We made our way to our folding chairs in the garden with our paper plates and cubed cheeses and we watched my stepmother give one of her eloquent speeches and a plea for donations, and there must have been a few other people who spoke but I can’t remember who, and then Ron Kovic took the podium, and he was mesmerizing, and when it was all over we stood up to leave, and my grandmother tripped.

    We’d been sitting in the front row (nepotism has its privileges) and when she tripped she fell smack into the wheelchair ramp that provided Ron Kovic with access to the stage. I didn’t know that wheelchair ramps have sharp edges, but they do, at least this one did, and it sliced her shin right open.

    The volume of blood was staggering.

    I’d like to be able to tell you that I raced into action; that I quickly took control of the situation, tending to my grandmother and calling for the ambulance that was so obviously needed, but I didn’t. I sat down and put my head between my knees because I thought I was going to faint. Did I mention the blood?

    Luckily, somebody did take control of the situation, and that person was Robert Downey Jr.

    He ordered someone to call an ambulance. Another to bring a glass of water. Another to fetch a blanket. He took off his gorgeous linen jacket and he rolled up his sleeves and he grabbed hold of my grandmother’s leg, and then he took that jacket that I’d assumed he’d taken off only to it keep out of the way, and he tied it around her wound. I watched the cream colored linen turn scarlet with her blood.

    He told her not to worry. He told her it would be alright. He knew, instinctively, how to speak to her, how to distract her, how to play to her vanity. He held onto her calf and he whistled. He told her how stunning her legs were.

    She said to him, to my humiliation: “My granddaughter tells me you’re a famous actor but I’ve never heard of you.”

    He stayed with her until the ambulance came and then he walked alongside the stretcher holding her hand and telling her she was breaking his heart by leaving the party so early, just as they were getting to know each other. He waved to her as they closed the doors. “Don’t forget to call me, Silvia,” he said. “We’ll do lunch.”

    He was a movie star, after all.

    Believe it or not, I hurried into the ambulance without saying a word. I was too embarrassed and too shy to thank him.

    We all have things we wish we’d said. Moments we’d like to return to and do differently. Rarely do we get that chance to make up for those times that words failed us. But I did. Many years later.

    I should mention here that when Robert Downey Jr. was in prison for being a drug addict (which strikes me as absurd and cruel, but that’s the topic for a different essay), I thought of writing to him. Of reminding him of that day when he was humanity personified. When he was the best of what we each can be. When he was the kindest of strangers.

    But I didn’t.

    Some fifteen years after that garden party, ten years after my grandmother had died and five since he’d been released from prison, I saw him in a restaurant.

    I grew up in Los Angeles where celebrity sightings are commonplace and where I was raised to respect people’s privacy and never bother someone while they’re out having a meal, but on this day I decided to abandon the code of the native Angeleno, and my own shyness, and I approached his table.

    I said to him, “I don’t have any idea if you remember this…” and I told him the story.

    He remembered.

    “I just wanted to thank you,” I said. “And I wanted to tell you that it was simply the kindest act I’ve ever witnessed.”

Me: Going about my daily business, doing fine. Suddenly it hits me: Tony Stark died to save the universe and every being in it. And I need to pause and deal with the gut-punch of losing him again…and the sheer mind-boggling immensity of what he did. And I wonder if he’s sainted and revered on every one of those billions of worlds he saved – or if they even know.

Me: At work, doing fine. Suddenly I think: Morgan Stark is going to have to grow up without her beloved father. And how did Pepper deal with Tony’s loss: did she close herself off for a while so Morgan wouldn’t see, and curl into a ball on her bed and weep? Is that last look Tony gave her, that look of pure love and relief and release, seared into her mind? How did she explain it all to Morgan? How? And I suddenly need to sit down, because the tears are coming again…

Me: At night, before sleep: HOW AND WHY IS TONY STARK DEAD?? Why do I feel like there’s a hole in my heart? Why am I going through the grief process about a fictional character just as if he were a real person? (And then I see so many of us here are pretty much going through the same thing, and that’s a little better – and holy smoke does that speak to the power of RDJ’s acting and his development of this character, who is now so beloved…)

but his honest sacrifice made me proud, he saved everyone, he gave up his life for the greater good, he finally knew what he had to do and he knew in his heart it was right.

and then, he went and let her WIN. Nebula has never been able to win anything in her life and she clearly was so baffled when Tony told her she won. 

how’s this for a doozy… he’s known since 2016

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The more I think about it, after all the emotional shock of it, the more I know that this was really the only way Tony’s story could’ve ended. 

Hear me out why: So Iron Man 3 was the natural conclusion to Tony’s original arc–and it was the happy retirement ending. It was the ending where Tony comes to grips with his demons, opens his heart, and puts aside his suits while still embracing his Iron Man identity. Iron Man 3 is when Tony stopped being the man who had nothing–and started to build something more. 

But the moment Tony stepped back into the suit for Age of Ultron? That was when Tony’s fate was sealed. It conclusively proved that Tony “can’t stop.” This is something he even admits in Civil War to Steve. And it was these events that led him down the road to his eventual demise–but also to the salvation of the entire universe. 

I find it ironic that, in Civil War, Tony accuses Steve of being the guy who can’t stand aside when things go south, but truthfully? Tony was speaking about himself. Tony can’t let things go. He can’t let the world suffer when he knows he can help. That’s what makes him a true hero (or, as the Endgame soundtrack calls him, “The Real Hero”). 

In Endgame, despite Tony having settled down, we see Tony’s been working on the time travel algorithm. He’s been working on it for years. Even before the team approached him. He hasn’t let it go. He never let go. His brain won’t shut off. He can’t let the injustice of it all stand. He can’t let Thanos win. 

Pepper calls him out on this. When Tony entertains pretending he never found the key, Pepper says aloud what Tony already knows: can you rest? Can you rest knowing you can do something? It’s a full-circle moment for their relationship–and it’s beautiful. For the longest time, Pepper was terrified of losing Tony to his heroism. In any other film, she would’ve encouraged him to put it away, try to put it aside, but here we see she’s the one telling him, “It’s okay. I understand. You need to do this. Go be a hero.” As Tony predicted in Iron Man, she’s proud of the man he’s become–and she even suits up to join him on the battlefield to fight at his side. 

With this blessing from the woman he loves, Tony opens Pandora’s box. He comes to the team with the time travel technology that will ultimately bring everyone back to life–but with this act comes the inevitable consequences as the ripples in the timestream bring Thanos back. Thanos, like a proverbial nightmare, arrives in a storm cloud, emboldened with a more terrible plan to eradicate all life. To destroy the entire Universe. By trying to do the right thing, once again Tony inadvertently puts the lives of everyone at stake.

We’ve known since Age of Ultron that Thanos represents Tony’s deepest fears: everyone he cares about dying while he still stands. Thanos represents Tony’s failure. “Why didn’t you do more?” as Steve says in the horrifying vision. I understand the fact Tony died to take-down the source of his trauma is inherently a bitter pill to swallow, but, in the end, it was Tony’s choice. He wouldn’t let it beat him–and he would rather die than see his nightmare become a reality. This is because Tony has always been a true hero–something recognizable enough Stephen Strange was willing to stake the entire universe on Tony Stark’s heart. 

So Tony does what he’s been destined to do. Holding all six of the Infinity Stones, Tony snaps his fingers. He does this fully knowing he is going to die, that he’s never going to get to see his little girl grow up, but he dies knowing everyone else will get to have a life. He dies to make sure everyone will get to know at least a semblance of the peace he had for five years. He dies to save his daughter, his wife, his friends, strangers. He dies so that he can finally be at peace–and that’s why Pepper tells him “We’ll be okay.” It’s what Tony needs to hear. Because of him, yes, everything will be okay. 

And the ripple effect of Tony’s sacrifice are immediately seen. Tony is why Steve chose to actually live. Tony’s death gives Steve the courage to finally let go and be happy, because otherwise Tony’s sacrifice would’ve been in vain. Tony’s death allows Thor to go on a journey of self-discovery. Tony’s death allows Clint to reunite with his family. Tony’s death ensures there will be new heroes alive to safeguard the world in his absence. In this way, Tony’s death was the catalyst for all these stories moving forward. He’s the reason the MCU was born–and he’s the reason it continues to breathe. 

Tony may have had an unhappy ending himself, but he safeguarded everyone else’s future. It isn’t inherently fair, but it was more than a fair trade. That’s what heroes do. They save others at the expense of themselves.